


Next Year

by MyOwnSuperintendent



Series: Welcome [5]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, The X-Files Revival
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-31
Updated: 2019-03-31
Packaged: 2019-12-30 01:56:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,875
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18305819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyOwnSuperintendent/pseuds/MyOwnSuperintendent
Summary: In the year following their reunion as a family, Mulder, Scully, Emily, and William navigate their relationships.  Fifth in the "Welcome" series.





	Next Year

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote the first four parts of this series before Season 11, based on some rumors that turned out to be extremely false, so now it is officially AU. In continuing this story, I wanted to keep it in line with the earlier sections, so I haven't included new things that we learned in Season 11 (William's new name, the Van de Kamps now living in Virginia, Baby #3) and have kept details the same even if they were contradicted (William was a redhead in Parts 1-4 and remains one here).
> 
> I don't own The X-Files or anything related to it. Hope you enjoy!

_September_

Will tries to keep his desk neat—even now, he remembers the people who were his parents telling him to clean his room—although he’s not that great at it.  He can usually find what he needs, though, if he goes through the stacks of papers.  He thought for a while about what pictures he wanted to keep there, and he eventually put one of him and Emily.  They took it right after they adopted her, so she’s eight and he’s one; she’s holding him, and they’re both looking at the camera with the same _What the heck?_ expression.  It’s always made him laugh.  They look alike there, really alike, which is something he never thought much about until last year.  Maybe he was stupid.  He could never have guessed the whole thing, he thinks, but maybe some of it.

He keeps his computer at his desk too, and right now he’s sitting at it, talking to Dana and Mulder over Skype.  He’s been telling them about his logic class; they have a test coming up.  “There’s a couple other people on my hall in it,” he says, “so we’re going to study together, I think.  I feel pretty good about it, though.”

“That’s good,” Dana says.  She and Mulder are sitting on the couch in their living room; the computer must be on the little table, he thinks.  It’s a space he knows now, even if he doesn’t quite call it home.  He tells people Wyoming when the inevitable where-are-you-froms come up.  Sometimes he says he lives in Virginia now, sometimes not.  “And you like the class?”

“Yeah,” he says.  “It’s really interesting stuff.  It’s so big, though.”  He can handle that part, though—the classes here aren’t like high school classes, but the work isn’t too hard for him and that change would have happened anyway, he tells himself.  It’s only all the changes being mixed up that gets to him, makes him stop sometimes and try to figure out just how he got here.

“What about your other classes?” Mulder asks.  “Are they still going well?”

William nods.  “I like all of them,” he says.  “Well, my history professor, his lectures are kind of boring.  But there’s some good stuff in the books for that class, anyway.”  He tries to think of what else they might want to know.  “I joined a debate club.”

“Hey, that sounds great!” Dana says.  “That’s a good way to meet people, too.  How’s it going so far?”

“Good, I think,” he says.  “We’ve only had two meetings.  There’s a lot of rules and things.  Ways you have to debate, I mean.  You can’t just yell out whatever you want.”  He grins.  “So it’s a learning curve.”

“It’s probably for the best, having some debating rules,” Mulder says.  “Sounds like something we could use, actually.  Right, Scully?”  He nudges her.

“Speak for yourself,” she says, nudging him back.  Will watches them.  He knows he wants to learn something.  He isn’t sure what.

“But the president of the club, she’s really nice,” he says.  “She helps us out a lot.  So I’m getting there, I think.” 

“I’m sure you are,” Dana says.  She smiles at him.  He smiles back.

“How about the two of you?” he asks.  “How are you doing?”  He never used to ask his parents that, not back when he was a kid.  That’s another one of the changes that he isn’t sure about, that might have happened anyway. 

“We’re good,” Mulder says.  “Back at work now.  We went to Arizona on a case—just got back this afternoon.”

“Oh,” he says.  “I hope you’re not too tired.  We could have talked tomorrow instead, if you wanted to.”

“Of course not,” Mulder says. 

“We wanted to talk to you,” Dana adds.  He knows they’re pretty serious about this.  Whenever they make plans to talk, they’re always calling him right on the dot.  He wonders if they know that he’s noticed. 

“What was your case about?” he asks.  “I mean, if you can tell me.”

“Some ghosts in an old fort,” Mulder says.

“They were not ghosts,” Dana says.  “I hope you’re not going to put that in the report.  William, it was like this…”

He knows their work stories should probably be the weirdest part of all of this, but whenever they tell one, he doesn’t want it to be over.  He listens to their words, for the moment not thinking at all about what’s changed.

 

_October_

They’ve been parents again for a year now, incredible as that still seems.  Even if they don’t get to see them every day, they unquestionably have two children.  Emily out in Wyoming: she calls a lot, texts them pictures, tells them she loves them (it’s still almost more than they could have hoped for).  William up in Boston, at school: they have their regular Skype dates, and they talk so much more easily now, and this weekend they’re driving up to visit him, to see him for the first time since August.

“Wake up,” Scully says, nudging him, early on Friday morning.  Mulder opens his eyes, rolling over and looking at the clock.  “We should get ready to get on the road.” 

“Yeah,” he says.  “You want the shower first or…?”

“You can go ahead,” she says.  He kisses her before getting out of bed.

They’re out of the house pretty quickly, on the road to Boston.  Driving together, just the two of them: it’s by no means a new experience.  It’s almost never like this, though.  Almost never for something like visiting their son at college: something that’s simultaneously as ordinary as can be and as thrilling as it can get.  Neither of them says how excited they are, but it’s in everything they do.  The way she turns the radio up loud, some 70s pop music thing that should be annoying as hell but isn’t; he finds himself humming along and sees that she is too, and when they roll down the windows it’s warm for October.  The way he decides to order a milkshake when they stop for lunch at a diner; they drink it with two straws, but they don’t linger, getting themselves back on the road.  The way they kiss when they get to their hotel, before they head back out, because right now they have somewhere to be.

“Should I try not to cry?” Scully asks him when they’re driving over to the campus.

“I don’t know,” he says.  “Should I?  Are we those embarrassing parents?”

“I think we’re the cool parents,” Scully says.  “We have sexy jobs…”

“Oh, yeah, flukemen and autopsies,” he says.  “Real sexy.”  She laughs; he loves how she looks, how she sounds.  “Face it, Scully.  We’re the parents you…don’t want to bring home to meet your parents.”  The sentence got away from him somehow, but she’s laughing again, and they’re some kind of parents, anyway, which makes all the difference.  When they get out of the car, there are a lot of other parents around, heading towards campus, and for now they blend right in.  He texts Will— _We’re here, we can meet you by your dorm_.  The text comes back: _OK, see you in a few_.

And he’s standing there: him, William, their son, with his height and Scully’s hair, once a baby they held and now a person they’re getting to know.  He waves as they come up.  “Hi,” he says.  “It’s great to see you both.”

Mulder hugs him close; he hangs on as long as he can, embarrassing parents be damned, and then he lets Scully have her turn.  He watches them as they hug, mother and son, and wonders if anyone else would know what a beautiful sight this is.  He takes Scully’s hand after she lets go, as they all start to talk.  Neither of them is really crying.  Maybe a few tears.

 

_November_

“Your grandmother always made this stuffing,” her mom tells her as they’re taking things out of the oven.  “It was her big thing.  I think the two of you would have liked each other a lot.”

Emily smiles.  “I can’t wait to try it,” she says.  “Will,” she calls into the living room, “what are you doing in there?  Can you come and help us carry things?”  And among the four of them they carry the dishes into the dining room and arrange them on the table.  “Do you want to do the I’m Thankful For’s?” she asks Will quietly.  Their family’s always done it, going around the table.  Of course, they’re used to having a lot more people there, but things are weird now; it’s not like their Aunt Hilda had anything to do with trying to harvest their cells, but the whole thing’s hard to explain, and their relationships with the extended family feel tentative now, even though they’ve know these people all their lives.  And now neither of their parents has much family, so it’s just the four of them.  It was the four of them last year too, but she didn’t even try to broach the topic of being thankful then.  She cried after dinner, muffling her face with a kitchen towel so no one would hear.  She heard Will crying too, later.  She doesn’t like to think about it much.

He’s quiet for a moment, and then he says, “Sure.”  She tells their parents about it when they sit down, and then they all go around; they use different words, but they’re all pretty much saying the same thing.  They’re glad to be here, together, having a Thanksgiving where hopefully nobody cries.

After they eat, they sit around in the living room, and she’s not even sure what they’re talking about when Will brings it up.  “Um…I was wondering…I know we haven’t talked about it before…do you guys have any pictures?  From when I was a baby, I mean.”

Their parents look at each other.  “We do,” their mom says, so simply, as if such a thing could never be in doubt.  “Did you…would you like to see them?”

“Yeah,” Will says, nodding.  “If that’s all right.”

“Of course it’s all right,” their mom says.  “I’ll get them.”  She gets up from the couch and goes upstairs, and the other three of them sit there silently until she gets back.  It doesn’t seem like the moment to talk.

She comes back with a box, which she holds out to Will, and he takes it and opens it.  This is his moment, Emily knows, and at first she makes herself sit back against the couch and give him his privacy, but after a minute she’s curious and she leans in to look at the pictures too.  She remembers Will as a baby, but not quite this little, and there are so many photographs, with dates written on the back in their mom’s handwriting.  Will sitting in one of those bouncy seats.  Will in their mom’s lap next to a Christmas tree, clutching a stuffed lamb.  Will bawling next to the same Christmas tree; she hears him laugh faintly at that one.  She’s not jealous, she’s not.  At the bottom of the box, Will, with both of their parents, so very, very small.  He holds on to that one for a long time, just looking.  “I didn’t know you kept all these,” he says, finally.  She can tell how much it means to him from his voice.  She wonders if their parents can tell, when they haven’t known him as long.

“We did,” their dad says.

“We would’ve never…” their mom says, and then she breaks off.  Emily’s starting to wonder if she should get up and pretend she’s going to wash the dishes. 

He picks up one of the pictures again; there’s another one stuck to the back, which he pulls off.  “What’s this one?” he asks. 

But she knows, even before their mom says, even before she sees the name on the birthday cake.  She tries to take it from his hand without grabbing.  She’s never seen a picture of herself from before she was eight, but she knows her own face.   She looks at the candles; she must be three.  Her smile’s still the same, she thinks.  “Did you…” she starts, and then she breaks off.  She can’t put it all into one question.

“The Sims took it,” her mom says.  “Your adoptive parents, the first ones.  And when I was looking into their case, I found it and I took it with me.  To try to figure out what was going on.  And after you…”  She swallows hard.  “Well, I kept it.”

Emily holds it in her hand, carefully with her fingers around the edges.  She stares at her three-year-old self, from a time she can only remember in brief moments, in images and sensations.  This picture of her has always been there, she thinks, in this box on the other side of the country from her, even when she didn’t know it, even when she was thinking about other things.  She’s always had these people.

She’s always had a past.

 

_December_

Emily tells her about a tradition she’s had ever since she was eight: she and Mrs. Van de Kamp would drive into the city to see _The Nutcracker_ , and after that they’d go shopping for Christmas presents.  “Were you ever in it?” Scully asks her.  “One of the kids?”  It’s been forever since she’s seen _The Nutcracker_ herself, but she knows there are a bunch of kids in it, and she knows Emily took ballet for ten years.  She’s seen pictures, a small Emily in a pink leotard, a teenaged Emily in a deep blue tutu.

Emily shakes her head.  “I started kind of late,” she says.  “And I wasn’t really that serious, I guess.  But I would have liked to be.”  She’s half smiling.  “I always used to get so excited about the costumes.  I wanted to wear something like that.”  She turns her mug of tea between her hands.  “Anyway.  I know it would be kind of last minute.  But I was wondering…while I’m here…would you like to go?  The two of us?  It’s always kind of been my…my thing at Christmas…and I’d like to go with you.  If you don’t think that would be weird, since, you know, I used to go with…”  She breaks off.  “Well, you know.”

She’s so touched that Emily would ask her this.  There’s a sense in which everything they do together still feels charmed, impossibly special, but the idea that Emily wants her to be part of this tradition seems especially important, even so.  “I’d love to go,” Scully says.  “Let’s see about getting tickets.”

Emily smiles.  “That would be great.”

“And Emily?” Scully adds.  “I know we’ve talked about this before.  But I really don’t mind if you want to talk about your other mom.”  She’s never sure what to call her—it’s hard for her to accord full maternal status to someone who was ultimately using her children—but Mrs. Van de Kamp did raise Emily and William for most of their lives, from everything they’ve said taking good care of them, and she doesn’t want either of them to feel like they have to pretend that never happened.  Emily did talk about the Van de Kamps more, back when Scully and Mulder were staying in Wyoming, all of them trying to get to know one another, but recently she seems to have shied off.  Scully doesn’t want to force the issue; she just wants Emily to know that she doesn’t have to keep quiet on her account.  “I know how important she was to you.”

“Thanks,” Emily says.  “But that’s okay.”  Scully isn’t sure what, exactly, is okay, but then Emily starts looking up _The Nutcracker_ on her phone and asking about what would be a good day for them to go, and it doesn’t seem like that line of conversation is open right now.  She’s quiet, sometimes, about these things.

They drive into DC together on the big day; a matinée is planned, and then the shopping and eating.  Emily is wearing a dark blue dress and has put her hair up; she looks beautiful, and Scully tells her so.  “Thanks,” she says, smiling widely.  “You look wonderful too.”

 _The Nutcracker_ is very enjoyable—Scully recognizes enough of the musical themes to share to some extent in Emily’s sense of familiarity, even if she doesn’t see the ballet every year.  They walk to a department store afterwards and are soon immersed in the challenging business of choosing presents.  “Should I get Dad a tie?” Emily asks.  “Would he like a tie?”

“Please do,” Scully says.  “He can’t be trusted to choose them for himself.”  Emily giggles at that, looking through the ties on a rack.

“How about this one?” she asks, giggling even harder.  It’s bright orange with a cactus pattern.

“He’d probably love it,” Scully says.  “But that doesn’t mean you should get it.”

She usually doesn’t like shopping, but she feels light-hearted as they go through their expedition, looking through stores together, debating options.  Emily shoos her away when she tries to follow her through the bookstore— “I’m getting your present!” she calls back over her shoulder—and she goes on her own to look for something for Emily, finally settling on a nice edition of _Sense and Sensibility_. 

When they’re done shopping, they squeeze themselves and their purchases into a restaurant booth, ordering hot chocolate.  “This was a lot of fun,” Scully says.  “Did you have a good time?”

Emily nods.  “It was really nice to do this again.  Since we couldn’t last year.”  Their situation as a family had still been fraught, at best, by this time last December; she imagines Emily hadn’t felt right proposing this kind of outing.  She’s not quite smiling when she speaks, even now.

Scully nods too.  “I’m sure it wasn’t exactly the same for you.  But I’m glad you had fun.”  Emily doesn’t answer; she’s fiddling with her cocoa cup, and her good mood from earlier seems to have dissipated.  Scully tries to think of what to say.  “Emily,” she finally tries, tentatively.  “It’s okay if you miss her.”

“No,” Emily says, and her voice is suddenly loud.  “It’s not okay.”  She’d been taking a sip of her cocoa when Scully spokes, and she puts the cup down hard, so the saucer rattles, so a little bit of liquid sloshes over.  “It’s not okay at all.” 

“Emily, I—”

“It’s not okay,” Emily repeats.  “Maybe you…you think that.  And I know you’re trying to be nice about it.  But it’s not.  I don’t want to miss her.”  She’s caught up in what she’s saying now, the words following one on top of the other, her voice harsh in a way Scully has never heard from her.  She’s seen Emily worried, sad, upset, but this is unquestionable anger.  “I wanted to do this with you so it could be our thing now.  So it wouldn’t have to be my thing with her anymore.  Because I don’t want to miss her.  She wanted to—she didn’t care about me and Will at all, not really.  So why should I have to keep caring about her?”  She’s shaking.  “And most of the time I really don’t.  I don’t miss them.  I have you and Dad and I don’t miss them.”

“Emily,” Scully says, trying to be gentle, not to check Emily if she doesn’t want to be checked, not to make her any more upset than she already is.  “That’s all right too.  However you feel is—”

“But I know that’s awful,” Emily says, and this is another thing Scully has never seen from her, the way she drives on through with what she’s saying, interrupting where she’s usually so carefully polite.  “I know I should…I should forgive.  That’s what a good person does.  But I can’t.  Sometimes I think I don’t want to.  And maybe that means I’m not…”  Her voice is unsteady, and she doesn’t resist when Scully reaches over and lays a hand on top of hers. 

“You’re a very good person, Emily,” she says.  “One of the best I know.  You shouldn’t blame yourself for being angry.”

“They’re the ones who taught me that,” Emily says.  “About forgiving.  That’s the thing—there’s so much that’s from them, things they taught me and even little things like this.  Like how we did the Christmas shopping.  And how can I—there’s just so much of them.  And I’m so…I’m so…I don’t want to be mad all the time.”  She’s quiet then, looking down.  It seems to be all she can get out.  Her shoulders start to shake.

Scully slides out of the booth and goes over to the other side, to put her arms around her daughter.  She can hear Emily crying quietly.  “I’m right here,” she says gently.  “I love you, Emily, and I’m right here.”  For a moment, as she holds Emily, the years seem to fall away.  She remembers those days in San Diego.  She didn’t know Emily then; now she knows her a lot better, but she can tell she still has more to learn.  Emily sobs, leaning her head on her hands on the table, and Scully holds on.  A waiter comes by and stares at them, and Scully glares until he goes away.

Emily stops crying eventually and wipes her face on her napkin.  “I’m sorry,” she says.

“You have nothing to be sorry for,” Scully tells her firmly.  “I’m your mom.  You can…you can share these things with me.”  Emily’s still wiping her eyes.  “Have you felt like this for a long time?” Scully asks her, because when she’s talked about the Van de Kamps before it hasn’t been like this. 

Emily nods, after a moment.  “Not right away, maybe,” she says.  “Not when you first came, I mean.  But for a while.”

“You could have told me,” Scully says.  She worries she sounds too accusatory, so she tries to rephrase.  “If you had wanted to, I mean.”

“I didn’t…I felt wrong about it,” Emily says.  “I didn’t want to feel like this.”

“I understand,” Scully says, and she thinks she does; she knows a lot about self-blame.  She hugs Emily tight again, saying, “Just please know that you haven’t done anything wrong.  And that if you want to, you can talk to me.  And I’m sure that goes for your dad too.  We both love you.”

Emily wipes her nose and tries to smile.  “So much for making this our fun tradition, huh?”

“We can try again next year,” Scully says.  “If you want to.”

“I think I do, actually,” Emily says. 

She disappears into the bathroom to fix her makeup while Scully pays for their drinks, and then they drive home.

 

_January_

  Will’s half working on problems for his chemistry class, half Skyping with Emily.  She’s giving him grief about that, of course.  “If you have to study, you should study,” she says.  “We can talk later.  I don’t want you to be reading when I’m trying to talk.”

“It’s fine,” he says.  “I can finish later.”  He makes a big show of picking up his papers, stacking them neatly, and putting them aside.  “See?”

She makes a face at him.  “Fine.  How are your new classes, anyway?”

“They’re good,” he says.  “Everything’s busy already, though.  I can’t believe I’ve only been back five days.”

“Yeah,” Emily says.  “It’s always like that.  I remember, from when I was in college.”  She talks like that was about fifty years ago, instead of just three.  “Did Mom and Dad drive you up again?  Or did you fly?”

“They drove me,” he says.  “I…you know.  I think they like doing it.”  He knows that’s true, anyway, that Dana and Mulder will jump at any chance there is to spend time with him, even if that means seven hours in a car.  But it’s true, too, that they’re not the only ones who want that time.  For him, it’s another chance at figuring them out, at making this whole thing into something real.  Sometimes, in the way they move or smile or speak, he sees something that he’s always done, and that’s something to grasp at, to store away.  He doesn’t know how to say all this to Emily.  “And we got here a couple of days early and did some Boston stuff.  Kind of the tourist thing.  Museums and all that.”

“You haven’t already been to all the museums?” Emily teases.  “I would have thought you’d do them all in the first week.”

“You know me,” he says.  “I’m always studying.  Always hard at work.”  He smiles, and she smiles back.  “What’s going on with you?”

“Nothing much,” she says.  “We’ve got a lot of snow out here.” 

“Send me pictures,” he says.  That’s one of the things he misses most: their farm, their town, the place itself.  He knows he wouldn’t be there right now, anyway, but it still feels lost to him.

“Sure!” she says.  “I was going to put some from this weekend on Facebook, anyway.  Steve dragged me skiing.  We went with Jill and her husband.” 

“I hope you didn’t injure yourself too badly,” Will says.  “I should be grateful you’re still here talking to me.  And not in a full body cast or something.”

“You’re the worst,” she says, but she’s grinning.  “We did have fun, though.  Steve was a good sport; he hung out with me at the lodge a bunch.  I like that better than the actual skiing.  We were at that one with the hot tub, so we spent a lot of time in there.”

“Gross,” he says.  He doesn’t actually think that; he likes Steve, whom he’s known almost as long as he can remember, and he knows he makes Emily happy.  But she’s his sister and he has to tease her, at least sometimes.

“Oh my gosh, Will, there’s nothing gross about it,” she says.  “We were fully clothed in that hot tub, if you must know.”

“That’s weird,” he says, “getting into a hot tub fully clothed.  Did your ski pants get all waterlogged or—”

“Stop,” she says.  “You know what I mean.  Bathing suits.  Anyway, aren’t you a little old to be all ‘ooh, cooties’ about everything?” 

“Never,” he says, giving her his most winning smile, and she sticks out her tongue.

“You really are the worst,” she says.  “Any love in your life?  Or are you too cool for all that?”

“Nah,” he says, shaking his head.  He doesn’t mention Alexandra Ng, who’s the head of his debate club, because until he can figure out how to string more than two sentences together when he’s talking to her, he doesn’t think that really counts.  Emily watches him narrowly, but she doesn’t ask any more questions about it.

“Your break’s in March, right?” she says instead. 

“Yeah, that’s right,” he says.  “Middle of there somewhere.”

“Well, send me the dates when you get a chance,” she says.  “Maybe I’ll try to get some time off and come and see you.  If you’d like.”

“Yeah, sure,” Will says.  “Dana and Mulder are going to come up here too, I think.  But we could all do something together.”  It’s different, when it’s all four of them.  He feels steadier then, like they really are some kind of a family, like he belongs in a way.  When it’s just him and Dana and Mulder, it’s not bad, not anything like that, but he still feels uncertain, like he’s trying for something, like he doesn’t know what’s around the next corner. 

“That sounds great,” Emily says, and this is still what feels the steadiest of all—when it’s just him and her talking—because he can’t remember a time before Emily. 

 

_February_

Mulder’s still lying in bed when Scully wakes up.  “Morning,” she says, smiling at him.

“Morning,” he replies, smiling back.  “Happy birthday.”

“Oh, right,” she says.  “That.”

“Yeah, that,” he says.  “What, you’re not excited about your birthday, Scully?”  He starts kissing her neck.  “Hold still,” he says, when she starts to roll away.  “I have to give you fifty-six kisses.  For your birthday.”

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she says, but she’s still smiling, and she doesn’t try to roll away again.  “Are they all going to be in the same place?” she asks after a few seconds.

“They don’t have to be,” he says.  “It’s your birthday.  Where do you want me to kiss you?”

“I’ll show you,” she says, pulling him towards her, and they don’t get out of bed for a while.

There’s a package on the front steps when they finally go downstairs for breakfast, with Scully’s name on it and Emily’s address written neatly in the upper left corner.  He takes it inside.  “For you,” he says, handing it to Scully, and then he takes a seat at the table next to her and watches her open it, sees the happiness in her eyes and the smile spreading over her face.  There’s a card at the top, which she reads carefully, which she props up in front of her carefully as she goes through the rest of the package.  A note on a slip of paper— _Happy birthday, Mom!  I promised I’d make you something, and I did!  Hope you like them_ —and then a hat, light purple and blue wool, with earflaps and a little pompom on the top, and a fringed scarf to match. 

Scully pulls them on immediately.  “How do I look?” she asks, turning to model them for him.

“Perfect,” he says.  “And they’re just right for today, too.  It looks like we’re going to get some snow.”

It’s still early in Wyoming, so Scully waits until around noon to call Emily and say thank you, and then the three of them talk for a while.  Mulder and Scully go out to walk around the property after that; the snow is starting to fall, but lightly, and it’s nice walking through it, Scully still wearing her new hat and scarf.

He knows she’s thinking about Will, that afternoon, when they’re back inside, lying on the couch, watching an old movie on TV and chatting idly.  He knows she’s not going to bring it up or complain—not Scully—but that she’d hoped he would call today.  That she wants that, to make her birthday all it should be.  He wishes he could give it to her.  Maybe he should have talked to Will, he thinks, earlier this week, asked him if he would call and wish Scully a happy birthday.  But he’s not sure—he doesn’t think it would cause real friction, not at this point, but still, there’s a part of him that feels like he doesn’t have the right, that he can’t make demands of Will.  He knows Scully feels the same; this is on them, the two of them, they’re the ones who have to put themselves out there.  So she won’t say anything, he knows, not even to him, about wanting Will to call.

He pulls her closer to him on the couch.  Strokes his fingers through her hair.  She leans her head into his chest, and they stay that way for the rest of the movie. 

It’s ten-thirty; she’s in the bathroom, and he’s settling into bed.  The phone rings, and he picks it up.  “Hello?”

“Hi.”  It’s Will, after all.  “Is Dana there?”

“Yeah, she’s here,” Mulder says.  “Just a second.”  He calls over towards the bathroom.  “Scully?  Will wants to talk to you.”

She hurries out of the bathroom, her face still half-covered in some kind of lotion, and grabs the phone from him.  “Hi, Will.”  She’s sitting on the bed next to him, and he watches her again, that same melting softness in her face from when she opened the package.  “Thank you, sweetheart.  I’m so glad you called.”  She’s smiling into the phone.  “Don’t even worry about it.  You know, I’d known your dad for four years before he even acknowledged my birthday.  So you’re way ahead…It’s been a really nice day, thanks.  We had some snow.  How about you?  How’s your day been?...That’s great.”  She listens to something else he says and then laughs.  “It happens.  I’m glad she caught you, though…Absolutely.  Well, have a good night, Will.  We’ll talk to you later this week, okay?...You too.  Bye.”  She hangs the phone up. 

“So he did call,” Mulder says, reaching out and touching her hand.  They can mention it, now.

“Yeah,” she says.  “He didn’t remember it was today.  But Emily called and reminded him.”

“That’s our Emily,” he says.

“Yes,” she says, still smiling.  She looks radiant.  He pulls her against him, lotion be damned, grateful, glad.

 

_March_

She hasn’t been on a college campus since she graduated, and she takes her time looking around, absorbing the scene.  It’s cold, though, and right now they don’t really have anywhere to be. 

“Should we…do you guys want to get something to eat?” Will asks.

“Sure,” their dad says, and Emily and their mom nod.

“We can…there’s a café in the student center,” Will says.  “Let’s go there.”

They go inside; Emily wipes the snow off her boots, carefully.  They get sandwiches and take them over to a table.  “How was your flight, Emily?” their mom asks.  “I didn’t get a chance to ask you before.”

“It was pretty good,” she says.  “I’m getting used to the whole thing, now.”  She flew for the first time just this past summer, when Will and their parents moved to the house in Virginia; now she’s been back and forth a bunch of times, for visits.  “It’s not so exciting anymore.”  Then she frowns; that didn’t come out quite right.  “Not that I don’t love seeing you guys.  That’s always exciting.”  She turns to Will.  “What do you have planned for the break, Will?  Besides hanging out with us.”

“Just a lot of homework,” Will says.  “It doesn’t feel like a break, really.”

“Oh, that’s such a pain,” Emily says.  “I guess you’ll have to wait for summer to have the real break.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Will says.

“Maybe you can come out and see me then,” Emily says.  “Do the flying for a change.” 

“That sounds really good,” Will says, eagerly.  “I’ve really missed home.”

She sees the looks on their parents’ faces, and she knows Will must too, even though she can tell they’re trying to hide them.  Will didn’t mean it to hurt them, she knows—it’s not like it was in those first days, anymore—and she knows that if she asked them about it they’d say that they understood, that of course Wyoming is home for Will, that they wouldn’t expect anything different.  But it’s one of those moments.  A little bump.

“I’ve missed you too,” she says, because that’s true, and it’s easier to say right now than anything else.  “It’s not the same without you around.  When did you get so old, anyway?”

He grins at her.  “You’re just sorry you can’t tell me what to do all the time.”

“Well, I bet you’re sorry you don’t have me around to help you out,” Emily says.  “Be honest with me.  How often do you do laundry?”

“Enough,” Will says.

“That’s not an answer,” Emily says, and they both start laughing, and their parents laugh too.  They’ve cleared that moment, she thinks.  They’re in smooth territory.

A guy stops by their table.  “Will!  How’s it going?”

“It’s going good,” Will says, as they high five.  “You?”

“Good, good,” the guy says.  “This your family?”

“Um…yes,” Will says, and the guy keeps looking at them.  But Will is silent.

“Hey,” he finally says, when Will doesn’t say anything else.  “I’m Jake.  Will and I live on the same hall.”

“I’m Emily,” she says.  “Will’s sister.”

“And these are Dana and Mulder,” Will says, and his voice is maybe a little too loud, and their parents nod, maybe a little bit too stiffly, and Jake seems to take the hint that this situation isn’t picture perfect.

“See you, then,” he says, and he goes off to another table.

They’re all quiet.  She should say something, Emily thinks; it would be easiest if it were her.  She’s the one who should be able to deal with this.  But she can’t think of anything to say, right now.  “Will,” she finally says; that’s all, and her voice is quiet, and she’s worried that she sounds disappointed.  Maybe she is, a little.  Not in Will, though.  Just in the way everything’s happened.

“What?” he says, sounding defensive.  “We’re not…that’s who they are.  Right?”  She doesn’t like the way he’s talking about it, like their parents aren’t sitting right next to them at the table.  “It’s not a bad thing.  It’s not an insult.”

“I know,” she says.  “I just…”  There’s no way she can say what she’s thinking without doing the same thing.  She wants to tell him that she knows this isn’t his fault, but she wishes he wouldn’t hurt their parents’ feelings.

“Emily, it’s okay,” their mom says.  “We’re fine.”  That’s a lie, Emily can tell easily.

“We get it,” their dad says.  “We do.”

“Like we’ve said,” their mom says, “we’ll take our time with this.  As long as it takes.”

But Will’s shaking his head.  “That doesn’t help, you know.”

“Will…” their mom says, softly.

“I just feel like you’re always waiting for me,” he says.  “It’s…I know you don’t say anything.  You’ve been really good about that.  But, still, I know you’re waiting for me and I can’t…”  He breaks off.  “Look, I’m sorry.  But it’s not going to make this happen any faster.”

“We’re not trying to—” their dad says.

But Will cuts him off.  “I know.  I know,” he says.  “I…I can’t explain it.  And this isn’t really the best place, anyway.”  He glances around the café, and the rest of them do the same, instinctively.  Emily would be glad if this doesn’t end up being a public scene.  She doesn’t know if she should feel bad about that. 

“We could go back to your dorm,” their mom says.  “Or the hotel.  If you want to talk to us.”

“I don’t, really,” Will says, and Emily doesn’t think he means that to be hurtful either, and she knows it is.  “Not right now,” he amends.  “Maybe I’ll go back to my room, though.  Like I said, I have a lot of homework.  And then we can have lunch tomorrow.  Like we talked about.”

“Are you sure?” their dad asks, and Emily can’t stand the way his voice sounds.  So sad.  She wants to tell them that they should make Will stay, make him talk to them, not let him close himself off like this.  She knows it’s hard for them, because they don’t want Will to feel like they’re telling him what to do, because they’re still a little nervous, maybe, that all this will go away.  But their other parents would have, she knows, if Will were acting like this; they’d have been understanding but a lot less conciliatory.  She wonders if she should do that now.  If she should be the one to make Will stay.

But maybe she can’t do that either.  So she just sits there, as he says, “Yeah.  I’ll see the three of you tomorrow,” and gets up and walks away.  He doesn’t even look at her.  She wonders whether he still sees her as an ally.

She wonders whose ally she’s supposed to be.  “He’ll be okay tomorrow,” she says to their parents, tentatively.  “He’s…he’s like this, sometimes.  You know that.  I know he’s happy we’re here.”

“Thank you, sweetie,” their mom says, and their dad pats her shoulder, but it all feels very half-hearted.  They finish their sandwiches, in this café where they don’t belong.

 

_April_

Will calls, when she’s not expecting it.  “Hi, Dana,” he says, when she picks up the phone.  “How are you doing?”

“I’m doing well,” she says.  “Not too busy this week, thankfully.  I just got back from taking Dagoo for a walk.”  Next to her, Dagoo barks at the sound of his name.  “He says hi.”  She wonders if she’s being cheesy, embarassing.  Decides she doesn’t care.

“I say hi too,” Will says.  “How’s Mulder?”

“He’s doing well too,” she says.  “Did you want to talk to him?  He went grocery shopping, but he should be back soon.”

“No, that’s okay,” Will says, and then he’s quiet.  She can hear him breathing. 

She waits for a minute, but he doesn’t say anything else.  “How are you?” she asks.  “Busy with your classes?”  Sometimes she hates it, wasting any of the time she has with him on this kind of small talk.  She knows she can’t expect every moment to be profound, though.

“Yeah, pretty busy,” he says.  “I have a paper due Wednesday for English.  So I’ve been working on that.”

“What’s it about?” she asks.

“ _Hamlet_ ,” he says.  Another little silence.  “Dana?”

“Yes?”

“This is kind of…it’s a dumb question, I guess.”

“You can ask me,” she says.  “I’m…that’s what I’m here for.”  She wonders what kind of question it’s going to be.  One of those conversations you expect to have with your kids, maybe, and that she thought she’d never have.  She guesses he’s too old for The Talk.  God, she hopes so.  Whatever it is, it must be serious, she thinks, because he seems nervous about asking; he hesitates again.

“I did try to look it up,” he says.  “Online.  Really.”

“I believe you.”

“But I couldn’t really find anything,” he says.  “So…how do you use an iron?”

She almost laughs, but he sounds very serious about this, so she stifles it.  “Oh, that’s not so bad.  Do you have an iron now?  On hand?”

“No,” he says.  “I wanted to ask you that too.  Should I get one, do you think?  Or just see if I can borrow one from someone?”

“Depends on how often you’re planning to use it, I guess,” she says.  “Do you think any of your friends have one?”

“I don’t know,” he says.  “I don’t think so.”

“Do you need it right away?” she asks.

“Before Friday.”

“Well, you could try asking around,” she says.  “But if not, there’s that housewares store we went to, right?  When you moved in?  I’m sure you could get one there.”

“Is there any special kind I should get?” he asks.

“I don’t think so,” Scully says; she’s not exactly an iron variety expert herself, if it comes to that.  But he’s looking to her now, trusting that she’ll have the answers.  “Whatever they have is fine.  I don’t think you need to spend a lot of money on this.  And then when you’ve got it—”

“Hang on a second,” he says.  “Let me just grab a pencil.  So I can write this down.”

She walks him through the steps of ironing.  Answers his questions.  Cautions him about burns and laughs when he says, “I know _that_ , at least.”  She can’t help it.  She’s his mom. 

“You think you’ve got it now?” she asks, at the end.

“I think so,” he says.  “But can I call you again if I have more questions?  Later?”

“You can call me any time, Will,” she says.  “You know that.”

“I do,” he says.  “Thanks.”

They’re quiet for a moment, but she decides they shouldn’t linger there: there’s a part of her that’s wary of making things too intense.  “Good for you for even trying this,” she says.  “I don’t think I ever ironed anything when I was in college.  Is it something special?”

“Just a shirt,” he says.  “For the debate tournament.”  He clears his throat.  “Anyway, I should probably go.  But thanks, Dana.”

“Of course,” she says.  “Have a good day, Will.  Call us after the tournament, if you have time—I’d love to know how it went.”

“Sure,” he says.  They say their goodbyes, and he hangs up, and she hangs up too.  She ruffles the fur behind Dagoo’s ears.

 

_May_

Will really isn’t thinking about it, when it happens.

They’re sitting in a diner near campus, a place he goes sometimes with his friends for late-night food.  He kind of likes showing it to the two of them.  It’s a place that’s his and yet that doesn’t have any baggage from the past.

They packed up his stuff this morning—they’ll start driving back to Virginia after this—and they’re talking about how the semester finished up when he hears a voice next to the table.  “Hi, Will!”

He looks up, but he doesn’t even need to look to know who it is.  Alexandra Ng, head of the debate club.  Definitely one of the smartest people he’s met here.  Definitely one of the nicest.  And yes, he thinks she’s cute.  He considers himself lucky that he’s able to debate when she’s around.  Non-debate conversation seems like a more formidable challenge.

But she’s here now, and smiling at him, and there’s nothing to debate.  “Are you going home for the summer?” she asks.

“Yeah,” he says.  “Yeah, I’m leaving today.  Oh, um, this is Alexandra.  She’s the head of the debate club.  Alexandra, these are my parents.”

  He doesn’t make any conscious decision in the moment.  He doesn’t realize what he’s said, at first.  But when Alexandra smiles and says, “Hi.  It’s nice to meet you,” and he catches a glimpse of their faces, hears them stumbling over their responses, he realizes it then.  He doesn’t know if he would have chosen to say it, if he’d thought about it.  But he’s not sorry that he did, except for the part where they’re acting weird, and Alexandra is there to witness it. 

“How about you?” he asks.  “Are you going home too?”

“I’m going home in August,” she says.  “I’m staying here to work at one of the summer programs for now.  It should be fun!  I’ve never stayed in Boston for the summer before.”

“You’re from California, right?”

“Yeah, that’s right,” she says.  “And you?”

“I live in Virginia,” he says, which is the simple answer, right now.

“Not too long a trip, then,” she says.  “Well, have a great summer, Will!  I’ll see you in the fall, right?”

“You can count on it,” he says, which is terrible, and cheesy, but she smiles again as she walks away, so maybe it’s not the worst.

Then he turns back to…to his parents.  They don’t want to make a big thing of it, he can tell, but they’re having a hard time acting normal, still.  She’s sniffling a little, and he’s squeezing her hand, and he’s tearing up too, when Will looks closely.

He smiles at them, and they smile back.

 

_June_

Will’s been back with them, since school ended; so far he’s been mostly hanging around.  Earlier this week, though, he got a call from one of his friends back in Wyoming.  Apparently they used to work at one of the local farms together, during the summers when they were in high school; the friend’s working there again this summer, and they’re short on staff.  He says Will should come out there.  He says Will could stay with him.

As far as Mulder knows, Will didn’t give him any kind of definite answer.  He told the two of them about it, and when Scully asked what he’d said, he said that he wasn’t sure about it.  In the past couple of days, he hasn’t given the two of them any more information, at least about what his plans are.  He’s told them a little about the job, though, said he always liked working there.  Emily called yesterday, and she said that Will had mentioned it to her too, but she didn’t know any more than they did.  “I’d love to see him,” she said.  “But if not, maybe we can visit some time this summer.”

Of course Emily would love to see him.  He’s her brother, after all, and has been for most of her life—longer than Mulder’s really known him, if he’s being honest.  Maybe he should let them be together this summer.  Maybe he’s being selfish.

Because he doesn’t want Will to go, of course he doesn’t, and he knows that Scully doesn’t either.  Especially not now, when it feels like he’s just gotten home, and when they’re closer than they’ve ever been.  He calls them Mom and Dad now.  He gave Mulder a Father’s Day card, the first one he’s ever gotten (he keeps it on his desk, where he can see it every day).  It’s not easy to think about him leaving.

But often that feels like hypocrisy.  He left himself: he remembers that often, when Will mentions something from growing up, something that he wasn’t around to see.  It’s as bad for Scully, if not worse.  They’ve held each other, in their room at night, tried to talk through the guilt in halting voices.  “I want to ask him to stay,” Scully said.  “But can we…can we do that?”  And neither of them was sure.

Scully’s still asleep, this morning, when Mulder goes downstairs for breakfast.  Will’s sitting at the table, doing something on his phone; he puts it aside as Mulder takes a seat.  “Hey,” he says.  “Good morning.  I was just talking to Mike.  My friend back home.”

“Yeah?” Mulder says.  “Are you still thinking about that job?”

“Yeah,” Will says.  “He really wants me to come out.  Says it’ll be like old times.”

“How long did you work there?” Mulder asks.

“Three summers,” Will says.  “During high school.  It’s a good job, too.  Pretty good money.”

“So do you think you’ll go?” Mulder asks.  He wants to say that he hopes not, doesn’t want to say it in a way that’s burdensome.

Will’s quiet for a minute.  “I don’t know,” he says.  “I’m still not sure, I guess.”  He looks up from his cereal.  “What do you think I should do?”

Maybe he should tell Will that it’s up to him; maybe Mulder can’t decide for him and doesn’t have the right to.  Maybe he should think about Emily, wanting to see her brother, or this unfortunate short-staffed farm.  But right now, Will is asking him.  Maybe he does have the right to say what he thinks.

“I think you should stay here,” he says.  “Your mom and I…we’d really like that.”

Will nods, pushing his spoon around the bowl.  “Do you think there’s anywhere around here I could get a job?” he asks.  “For the rest of the summer.”

“I’d think so,” Mulder says.  “I don’t know what’s out there, exactly, but I’d think there’d be something.  I can help you look,” he adds.  “If you want.”

“Sure,” Will says.  “Sure, that sounds good.”

 

_July_

Emily kind of wanted to talk to her mom, but she was out when she called, so she’s talking to her dad instead.  She could just call back later, she guesses, but she set aside this time, so now she figures she should see it through.

“I’ve been…I’ve been thinking about what I should do,” she tells him.  “Next.”

“What you should do next?” he asks.

“With my life,” she says.

She knows the statement sounds hopelessly vague, and she’s not surprised when he chuckles and says, “That’s the million dollar question, Em.”

“I know.  I know,” she says.  “It’s tough.”

“Any specific parts of life?” he asks. 

“Well, there’s work, first of all,” she says.  “I like my job.  I do.  But I don’t know how much longer I want to stay there.”

“Yeah,” he says.  “I know you’ve been thinking about that.”

“How?” she asks, because she hasn’t talked about this with him, at least she doesn’t think so.  She wonders if he has some kind of telepathic powers.  It wouldn’t be the weirdest thing to happen in their family.

“You mentioned something about it,” he says.  “Back when we met.  Well, not when we met—you were three.”  He laughs, and so does she.  She still has vague memories of that day; she knows that he made her smile.  “When we met again, then.  I think it was that first time we had breakfast together.  You were telling me and your mom where you worked.  And you said you liked it, but you weren’t planning to stay forever.”

She doesn’t remember saying it, honestly—there was a lot going on in those first days—but it makes her happy to know that he does.  “Oh,” she says.  “Well, that sums it up, I guess.  It is a good job.”  She thinks about all the days she’s spent at the optician’s—she’s been there more than two years now—about the coworkers she likes, the tasks she knows well, the customers she helps.  “But I feel like I could be doing something else.”

“Anything in particular you’re thinking about?” he asks.

“I was thinking,” she says, “that I might go back to school.  For social work.”

“I didn’t know you were interested in that,” he says.  He sounds pleased.  He studied psychology, she knows, and she wonders if that’s why: if he’d like her to be like him.  She thinks she’d like that too, the idea that she takes after her dad.  She knows their situation isn’t what people usually think of when they say that.  Mulder didn’t raise her, and he’s not her dad in the same strange way that Dana is her mom.  But not everyone has to know that.  People might look at them, maybe, not knowing anything about it all, and say it: Emily takes after her dad.  And they could smile and nod.

“I’m still not sure,” she says.  “But I like the idea.  I’d want to work with kids.  With families.  Since, you know…I kind of have experience with that kind of thing.  Maybe in a weird way, but moving around to those different families and…everything with us.  You know.”

“I do,” he says.

“So I’d like to help other people,” she says, “if they’re going through it.  I think…well, I think I could be good at it.”  She hopes she doesn’t sound like she’s bragging.

“Em,” he says, his voice serious, “you’d be great at it.”

She smiles, when he says that.  “Thanks,” she says softly.

“I mean it,” he says.  “Are you looking at schools now?”

“A little bit,” she says.  “I’ve just started looking things up.  But that’s the other thing.  I have to decide where I want to be.  I was looking at some places out east, because it would be nice to see you and Mom and Will more often.  But then there’s Steve too, and he’s here.  I don’t know how he’d feel about long distance.  I haven’t talked about this with him yet.”  Before last year, she wouldn’t have guessed that this would happen, that she’d have people she loved in all different places. 

“You have time,” he tells her.  “To talk about it.  To decide.  We’d love to see you more often too, of course.  But wherever you end up, we’ll come and see you.  And whatever you decide, we’ll be really proud of you.”

That makes her smile too.  She knows she can trust it.  “Thanks, Dad,” she says.  “And thanks for letting me talk through it.”

“Any time,” he says.  “Everything else going well?”

“It is,” she says.  “How about you?”  They talk for a little bit about what they’ve been up to before they say goodbye.  She asks him to say hi to her mom and to Will, to give them her love, and he says that he will.  So much love, she thinks, travelling over the phone.

 

_August_

It’s a hot day, the sun bright.  Scully slathered herself in sunblock before they went out, sharing a bottle with Emily.  “I always burn so bad,” Emily said.

“Me too,” Scully said.  “Always have.”  They shared a smile.  “I remember one time in high school when I was waiting for my sister outside—it couldn’t have been more than twenty minutes, but my whole neck was bright red.”

“One time we went to a carnival,” Emily said, “and I was wearing a sleeveless dress, and my shoulders got so burned.  And the next day Will kept putting his hand on my shoulder, just to be a jerk.”  She shot him a look, and he grinned back at her.  And they all laughed.

But now they’re protected against any such misfortunes, at least for a while (Emily put the bottle in her bag, so that they can reapply later), and they’ve walked out to the edge of the place.  The Van de Kamp home—her kids’ home, still, at least in some sense.  The place where they did their growing up, where they became who they are.  They’re none of them sure what to do with it, because of that: they’ve talked about it some, tentatively, about selling it or renting it out, and Scully knows that that would probably be sensible, because it’s a big place and it needs a lot of upkeep.  But she knows, too, that it’s still a rough subject, especially for Will, and it technically belongs to the kids now, after all.  So they’ll take their time. 

And today she’s glad of that, because it really is a beautiful place.  There’s so much land here, so much space, and it makes all of them lighter.  The kids especially; she can tell from the way they smile at each other, trading jokes.  But that makes her feel lighter too, seeing them like that, and she knows it’s the same for Mulder.  A family thing, she guesses.  She can say that now.

They packed a picnic lunch: Emily directed most of the cooking, and Mulder made the deviled eggs, which he claimed were his party piece, even though Scully has never, in twenty-seven years, seen him host a party.  They set out the blanket now, Scully holding two of the corners and Will the other two, gently shaking the edges to lay it flat, and then they sit down.  They take the food, and Emily pronounces the deviled eggs really delicious.

“High praise from you,” Mulder says, smiling.

She’s sitting next to her son, and he’s talking to her about his plans for the beginning of the school year; she’ll miss him when he goes back, she knows, but she’ll see him again.  She’s sitting next to her daughter, and she’s telling her about how she’s been looking at different grad schools, starting her applications; she mentions some places near Washington, and Scully relishes the thought of having her close.  And she’s sitting across from Mulder; their eyes meet, in the midst of the picnic and conversation, and she reaches out and squeezes his hand.  He doesn’t need to tell her what he’s thinking.  She knows. 


End file.
